I had the opportunity to visit Rajgad a few days ago. It's been 15-20 years since I'd last been there, and back then I didn't really appreciate how sprawling it is. It has three large border wall constructions at three different directional extremities - Padmavati Machi, Suvela Machi, and Sanjivani Machi.
As I stood atop Balekilla appreciating the fort's expanse, I wondered how they managed to build it all. Ghanekar Sir told me a number that I unfortunately forgot so take this with a grain of salt - 2.25 lakh tonnes - that's the amount of stone that went into building the fort. Some part of this was the non-porous basalt rock that was excavated while building cisterns. Some part of it must be from the loose rocks found on the mountain itself, and a small part of it could also be other building material brought atop the mountain from the villages below. In the absence of modern machinery why backhoe loaders, excavators, cranes, etc. it's really impressive how they managed to build all of it.
A partial answer is labour, or how easy it was to get a lot of it. Bigari kaamgars (forced labour) was the default construction worker. Others were usually paid in just daily meals. Very few would be paid in actual money. Another part of the answer is that they did have some primitive machinery to aid them. I am pretty sure pulleys existed, so a gin-pole like mechanism to lift heavy loads is not unthinkable. Then, pushing/pulling loads across the ground is pretty easy if you can place a handful of logs and then roll stuff on them. Donkeys, mules, bulls, horses or even elephants would be used in plenty to help out in between.
It still won't be as easy though. Sahyadri terrain would be very unforgiving. Dense vegetation, tall hills, carnivorous beasts, danger from enemies...all of these would've made it very difficult. A quick google search tells me that there are about 360 such forts in Maharashtra. Impressive how they built these huge structures!
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